On November 20, 2009, Malaysian local time, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was granted the banking license from BANK NEGARA MALAYSIA, the central bank to open a subsidiary bank in Malaysia. The local bank to be established will be the first banking institution ICBC sets up in Malaysia, marking a significant breakthrough in ICBC's implementation of its globalization strategy. ICBC's application had been approved by China Banking Regulatory Commission previously.

Malaysia is one of China's most important trade partners in ASEAN. In 2008, bilateral trade volume was USD 53.469 billion, representing about one quarter of total trade volume between China and ASEAN. In August 2009, bilateral import and export reached MYR11.56 billion, making China the biggest market of Malaysia's export.. In the same period, Chinese export to Malaysia accounted for more than 13% of Malaysia's total imports, making China the biggest exporting country to Malaysia. The ever increasing economic, trade and investment ties between China and Malaysia have laid a solid ground for the development of financial service industry and raised new demands for cross-border banking services.

Amid the on-going global economic and financial integration and with the huge demand from "go-out" Chinese enterprises for cross-border financial services, ICBC has been proactively implementing its globalization strategy, accelerating overseas business deployment and expanding business scopes in order to enhance its cross-border financial service capabilities. As of the end of September, 2009, ICBC had 155 branches and offices in 15 countries and regions and 1,393 correspondent banks in 125 countries and regions which in a combined manner constitute a worldwide financial service platform which is featured with clearly-layered organizational structure, reasonably targeted market segments, diversified delivery , and efficient operations and covers international financial hubs and China's major economic and trade partners. As at the end of the third quarter of 2009, ICBC had total assets of RMB11.67 trillion and recorded after-tax profit of RMB100.54 billion, with which the Bank continues to boast as the largestt bank in the world in terms of both market value, profitability and deposits.

After its establishment, ICBC's subsidiary bank in Malaysia will vigorously integrate itself into the local financial market and play an active role in serving bilateral economic exchanges and trade and boosting Malaysia's economic development through leveraging ICBC group's remarkable customer base, capital strength, network and the state-of-the-art technology.